Fortinet Enhances the Industry’s Most Comprehensive Operational Technology Security Platform to Protect Cyber-Physical Systems

Rhea-AI Summary

Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) has announced significant updates to its Operational Technology (OT) Security Platform, enhancing protection for cyber-physical systems. The updates include:

1. New ruggedized appliances
2. Advanced secure networking capabilities
3. Expanded security operations features
4. Enhanced partnerships with leading OT vendors

These improvements aim to address the growing cyber risks in OT environments, as 73% of organizations experienced intrusions impacting OT systems in 2024. Key enhancements include advanced asset identification, expanded virtual patching, new rugged switches, and AI-driven security operations capabilities. Fortinet has also strengthened collaborations with partners like Armis and Claroty to improve OT asset management and network operations.

Positive

• Fortinet introduced new ruggedized appliances and advanced secure networking capabilities
• Expanded partnerships with leading OT vendors to enhance asset management and network operations
• 73% of organizations experienced OT system intrusions, indicating a growing market for Fortinet's OT security solutions
• Introduced AI-driven security operations capabilities to defend against growing OT threats
• Recognized as a Representative Vendor in the 2023 Gartner Market Guide for CPS Protection Platforms

Negative

• None.

Insights

Cybersecurity Analyst

Fortinet's enhanced OT Security Platform is a significant development in the cybersecurity landscape. The platform's improvements address the growing threat landscape in operational technology, with 73% of organizations experiencing OT-related intrusions in 2024. Key enhancements include:

• Advanced asset identification and virtual patching capabilities
• New ruggedized switches for industrial environments
• Expanded AI-driven security operations
• Enhanced partnerships with OT vendors

These updates position Fortinet strongly in the cyber-physical systems (CPS) market, potentially boosting its competitive edge. However, the real test will be in the platform's effectiveness against evolving threats and its adoption rate among critical infrastructure operators.

Financial Analyst

From a financial perspective, Fortinet's enhanced OT Security Platform could drive significant revenue growth. The company's focus on the expanding CPS market aligns with industry trends, as evidenced by its recognition in Gartner's Market Guide. The platform's comprehensive nature and partnerships with key players like Armis and Claroty may lead to increased market share and potentially higher profit margins.

Investors should note that while specific financial figures aren't provided, the expanding threat landscape in OT environments suggests a growing addressable market. Fortinet's long-standing presence in this space (20+ years) gives it a competitive advantage, potentially translating to sustained long-term growth if execution remains strong.

Industrial IoT Specialist

Fortinet's updates to its OT Security Platform demonstrate a deep understanding of industrial IoT challenges. The introduction of FortiSwitch Rugged 216F-POE and 424F-POE addresses the need for robust, high-bandwidth solutions in harsh industrial environments. The FortiExtender Vehicle update is particularly noteworthy, as it enables secure fleet management in challenging conditions.

The platform's enhanced capabilities in asset identification, virtual patching and secure remote access are important for protecting increasingly connected industrial systems. However, the true test will be in how seamlessly these solutions integrate with existing OT infrastructure and their ability to adapt to the unique requirements of different industrial sectors.

Updates across the Fortinet OT Security Platform include new ruggedized appliances, advanced secure networking and security operations capabilities, and expanded partnerships with leading OT vendors

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Aug. 05, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

John Maddison, Chief Marketing Officer at Fortinet
“As more operational infrastructure becomes connected, the attack surface increases, leading to greater cyber risk. Traditional information technology (IT) security tools are ineffective and worse, cannot even be deployed in an operational technology (OT) environment. Fortinet has been building an industry-leading OT security platform for 20+ years and today we are proud to announce many enhancements across the platform.”

News Summary
Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT), the global cybersecurity leader driving the convergence of networking and security, today announced updates to its OT security platform, which already stands as the industry’s most comprehensive. Today’s news provides customers with enhanced secure networking and security operations (SecOps) capabilities and expands Fortinet’s strategic partnerships with leading OT vendors, reflecting Fortinet’s commitment to delivering security for the growing cyber-physical systems (CPS) market and dedication to protecting critical infrastructure in verticals spanning energy, defense, water supply systems, manufacturing, food, transportation, and more. In fact, Fortinet was recently recognized as a Representative Vendor in the 2023 Gartner^® Market Guide for CPS Protection Platforms.

According to the Fortinet 2024 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report, cyberattacks that compromise OT systems are on the rise, with nearly three-fourths (73%) of organizations experiencing an intrusion that impacted either OT systems only or both IT and OT systems (up from 49% in 2023). As a result, it’s more critical than ever for organizations to deploy cybersecurity solutions specifically engineered for OT environments, including critical infrastructure. 

Building upon its legacy of more than two decades as a global cybersecurity leader, Fortinet’s OT security platform was designed to mitigate industrial risk and accelerate and optimize customers’ OT security journeys. The latest updates to the platform include:

New Advanced Capabilities in OT Secure Networking

• Enhanced asset identification and OT network topology in the FortiOS OT View with configurable asset location to improve asset identity, location, and communication pathways. 
• Expanded virtual patching capabilities and new capabilities in FortiOS: The introduction of virtual patching signatures in the FortiGuard OT Security Service provides wide-ranging vulnerability protection and unpatched OT asset shielding.
• Two new series of rugged switches: the FortiSwitch Rugged 216F-POE (power over Ethernet) is designed to support bandwidth-intensive industrial environments and redundant architectures, and the FortiSwitch Rugged 424F-POE has features designed to power Industrial-Internet-of-Things (IIoT) devices. 
• FortiSRA enables secure remote access to support remote third-party contractors, auditors, and employees, protecting critical OT systems against threats from remote access and untrusted networks. 
• FortiExtender Vehicle update enables fleet management in a ruggedized form factor to withstand harsh environmental conditions and offers secure LAN extension from remote FortiGate Next-Generation Firewalls to create a truly unified platform for vehicles and first responders. 
  

Expanding AI-Driven OT Security Operations Capabilities to Defend Against Growing OT Threats

• Expanded OT capabilities in FortiSOAR, including the introduction of OT View – an IT/OT overview dashboard with OT asset management – and new compliance playbooks to increase OT network and asset visibility and remediation for OT. 
• Increased analytics and reporting capabilities in FortiAnalyzer by creating NERC CIP, IEC 62443-3-3, and IT/OT Risk reports. An upcoming IoT/IIoT/OT dashboard includes analytics support for Internet-of-Medical-Things (IoMT) to further assist with regulatory compliance and security posture evaluations.
• FortiNDR for OT provides network behavior analysis to identify known and unknown threats across the IT/OT infrastructure and detect OT network anomalies.
• FortiDeceptor-as-a-Service offers expanded deception for OT and IoT with additional devices and protocols and simplified deployments to streamline user experiences.

Enhancing Fortinet’s OT Partnerships
Fortinet’s global partner ecosystem brings together organizations with specialized OT expertise to help customers maximize cyber resiliency and improve operational efficiency.

Recent collaborations with Fortinet Alliance partners Armis and Claroty, as part of the Fortinet Open Ecosystem, have produced new and enhanced integrations with FortiManager, FortiSIEM, FortiSOAR, and FortiNAC to maximize actionable OT asset information, simplify OT network operations for customers, and improve customers’ security postures.

Additionally, Fortinet introduced a new Engage Preferred Services Partner (EPSP) OT Practice designation to empower OT channel partners with the tools they need to design and deploy OT network infrastructure.

Supporting quotes
"Armis and Fortinet are a full stack best-in-class OT/IoT security solution that sees, protects, and manages every critical OT asset in the environment fully. The partnership between Armis and Fortinet is strategic and complementary for both our companies and our mutual customers. Being a partner in Fortinet’s industry-leading Technology Alliance Program enables Armis to deepen the integrations between the Armis Centrix™ platform and the Fortinet Security Fabric, resulting in the broadest real-time visibility into IT/OT intersection risks and maximization of policy-driven enforcement of zero-trust network access and segmentation. Together, we co-innovate to address our customers' most consequential cyber risks in OT and enable protection at scale." 
– Nadir Izrael, Co-Founder and CTO, Armis

“Claroty xDome combined with the Fortinet Security Fabric delivers a level of visibility, context, and network policy enforcement that is unmatched in securing cyber-physical systems. Claroty’s zone-based policy recommendations and unique planning capabilities leveraged within the Fortinet Security Fabric via our unique FortiManager integration enable tangible risk reduction and remediation action, at scale, that dramatically accelerate OT segmentation and policy enforcement projects. As a partner in Fortinet’s Open Ecosystem, we’re able to drive key integrations that harness these capabilities to deliver a faster time to value for our customers.”
– Stephan Goldberg, Vice President of Business Development, Claroty

“With Fortinet, we centralized everything and brought all the management information we need into a single pane of glass. That enables us to quickly see what is happening across all our different units. Our Fortinet management systems consolidate information and do a good job of filtering through all the noise on the network to quickly identify issues. That streamlines my team’s processes, so we do not have to keep adding bodies just to look at logs.”
– Dustin Fischer, Director of IT, Wunderlich-Malec Engineering

“The [Fortinet Security] Fabric allows us to operate a lean team as we do not need a large staff to manage our security and network infrastructure. It drives efficiency through a single-pane-of-glass approach to device management and the ability to centrally configure policies and push them out to all devices. This is particularly important when incorporating new locations, as we believe it will help us easily scale in the years ahead.”
– Chad Logan, Senior Director of IT and Applications, McPherson Companies

Additional Resources

• Learn more about the Fortinet OT Security Platform in the Fortinet blog.
• Visit fortinet.com/trust to learn more about Fortinet innovation, collaboration partners, product security processes, and enterprise-grade products. 
• Learn more about Fortinet's commitment to product security and integrity, including its responsible product development and vulnerability disclosure approach and policies. 
• Learn about Fortinet’s free cybersecurity training, which includes broad cyber awareness and product training. As part of the Fortinet Training Advancement Agenda (TAA), the Fortinet Training Institute also provides training and certification through the Network Security Expert (NSE) Certification, Academic Partner, and Education Outreach programs.
• Learn more about FortiGuard Labs threat intelligence and research and Outbreak Alerts, which provide timely steps to mitigate breaking cybersecurity attacks.
• Learn more about Fortinet’s FortiGuard Security Services portfolio.
• Read about how Fortinet customers are securing their organizations.
• Follow Fortinet on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Subscribe to Fortinet on our blog or YouTube.

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally. All rights reserved.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner, 2023 Gartner®️ Market Guide for CPS Protection Platforms, By Katell Thielemann, Wam Voster, 29 June 2023

About Fortinet
Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) is a driving force in the evolution of cybersecurity and the convergence of networking and security. Our mission is to secure people, devices, and data everywhere, and today we deliver cybersecurity everywhere you need it with the largest integrated portfolio of over 50 enterprise-grade products. Well over half a million customers trust Fortinet's solutions, which are among the most deployed, most patented, and most validated in the industry. The Fortinet Training Institute, one of the largest and broadest training programs in the industry, is dedicated to making cybersecurity training and new career opportunities available to everyone. Collaboration with esteemed organizations from both the public and private sectors, including CERTs, government entities, and academia, is a fundamental aspect of Fortinet’s commitment to enhance cyber resilience globally. FortiGuard Labs, Fortinet’s elite threat intelligence and research organization, develops and utilizes leading-edge machine learning and AI technologies to provide customers with timely and consistently top-rated protection and actionable threat intelligence. Learn more at https://www.fortinet.com, the Fortinet Blog, and FortiGuard Labs. 

Copyright © 2024 Fortinet, Inc. All rights reserved. The symbols ® and ™ denote respectively federally registered trademarks and common law trademarks of Fortinet, Inc., its subsidiaries and affiliates. Fortinet’s trademarks include, but are not limited to, the following: Fortinet, the Fortinet logo, FortiGate, FortiOS, FortiGuard, FortiCare, FortiAnalyzer, FortiManager, FortiASIC, FortiClient, FortiCloud, FortiMail, FortiSandbox, FortiADC, FortiAI, FortiAIOps, FortiAntenna, FortiAP, FortiAPCam, FortiAuthenticator, FortiCache, FortiCall, FortiCam, FortiCamera, FortiCarrier, FortiCASB, FortiCentral, FortiConnect, FortiController, FortiConverter, FortiCSPM, FortiCWP, FortDAST, FortiDB, FortiDDoS, FortiDeceptor, FortiDeploy, FortiDevSec, FortiEDR, FortiExplorer, FortiExtender, FortiFirewall, FortiFlex FortiFone, FortiGSLB, FortiGuest, FortiHypervisor, FortiInsight, FortiIsolator, FortiLAN, FortiLink, FortiMonitor, FortiNAC, FortiNDR, FortiPenTest, FortiPhish, FortiPoint, FortiPolicy, FortiPortal, FortiPresence, FortiProxy, FortiRecon, FortiRecorder, FortiSASE, FortiSDNConnector, FortiSEC, FortiSIEM, FortiSMS, FortiSOAR, FortiStack, FortiSwitch, FortiTester, FortiToken, FortiTrust, FortiVoice, FortiWAN, FortiWeb, FortiWiFi, FortiWLC, FortiWLM and FortiXDR. Other trademarks belong to their respective owners. Fortinet has not independently verified statements or certifications herein attributed to third parties and Fortinet does not independently endorse such statements. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein, nothing herein constitutes a warranty, guarantee, contract, binding specification or other binding commitment by Fortinet or any indication of intent related to a binding commitment, and performance and other specification information herein may be unique to certain environments.

Media Contact: Elena Fuhrmann Fortinet, Inc. 408-235-7700 pr@fortinet.com		Investor Contact: Aaron Ovadia Fortinet, Inc. 408-235-7700 investors@fortinet.com		Analyst Contact: Brian Greenberg Fortinet, Inc. 408-235-7700 analystrelations@fortinet.com

FAQ

What new features has Fortinet added to its OT Security Platform?

Fortinet has added new ruggedized appliances, advanced secure networking capabilities, expanded security operations features, and enhanced partnerships with leading OT vendors to its OT Security Platform.

How many organizations experienced OT system intrusions according to Fortinet's 2024 report?

According to Fortinet's 2024 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity Report, 73% of organizations experienced an intrusion that impacted either OT systems only or both IT and OT systems.

What are some of the new AI-driven capabilities in Fortinet's OT security operations?

Fortinet has expanded OT capabilities in FortiSOAR, increased analytics and reporting in FortiAnalyzer, introduced FortiNDR for OT to provide network behavior analysis, and offered FortiDeceptor-as-a-Service with expanded deception for OT and IoT.

Which companies has Fortinet partnered with to enhance its OT security offerings?

Fortinet has enhanced collaborations with Armis and Claroty as part of the Fortinet Open Ecosystem to maximize actionable OT asset information and simplify OT network operations for customers.